The fear of misuse of SIM cards to implicate government functionaries rose on Monday when law secretary Suresh Chandra claimed that he was not in London on November 8.

As murky details about the the bitter feud between CBI chief Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana continue to tumble out, the government has taken note of the possibility of “sensitive numbers” being put under illegal surveillance and, even, plots to frame individuals by fraudulently obtaining SIM cards on their identity papers or cloning their numbers.

The fear of misuse of SIM cards to implicate government functionaries rose on Monday when law secretary Suresh Chandra claimed that he was not in London on November 8 when he, going by the writ petition filed by transferred CBI DIG Manish Sinha, allegedly reached out to businessman Satish Babu Sana, a key figure in the ugly saga, through Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer Rekha Rani.

Sinha quoted Sana, who first levelled a bribery charge against the CBI chief before turning on Asthana with a similar allegation, telling his team that Rekha Rani had asked the controversial businessman to talk to Chandra on a London number. The law secretary told TOI that he had visited London only once this year and that was in July.

“This reads like the perfect script of a frame-up. You can arrest anybody on the basis of an alleged call and he will not be able to prove his innocence until trial starts and the fraud is exposed by forensic examination,” a senior government functionary said.

In their petitions, both Sinha and his junior, CBI DSP A K Bassi, have talked about phone surveillance. Sinha even went on to detail the purported content of conversations between NSA Ajit Doval and Asthana. “The NSA informed Rakesh Asthana about the FIR and Asthana reportedly made a request to NSA that he should not be arrested,” the shunted DIG claimed in his petition. The CJI and others on the bench, Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, were upset that the “unsubstantiated” allegations were wantonly circulated even though they were yet to be listed before the court.

But what gave grief to the CJI has also set off alarm bells in government circles. For, implied in the claim is the possibility of phone numbers of both Doval and Asthana being among several which, according to Sinha, were put under surveillance.

An investigating agency cannot put tabs on phones without approval from the home secretary. An exception has been provided under an ‘emergency clause’ which allows the head of the agency to permit surveillance provisionally under circumstances which have clearly been mentioned. However, the agency is required to inform the home secretary within three days and seek approval in seven days, failing which the telecom firm stops diverting calls to servers especially installed for eavesdropping.